HMS Queen Elizabeth (R08): Britain's Flagship, From New Jersey Trials to the South China Sea

Built Across Six Shipyards

HMS Queen Elizabeth is the lead ship of her class and, by displacement, the largest warship the Royal Navy has ever built. Constructed by the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, a consortium bringing together BAE Systems, Babcock, A&P Tyne, Cammell Laird and others, she was assembled from nine massive blocks built in six different shipyards around the country before being brought together at Rosyth. Laid down on 7 July 2009, launched in July 2014, and commissioned on 7 December 2017, she did not formally enter full service until 2020, a reflection of just how much work goes into bringing a ship of this scale and complexity to genuine operational readiness.

Proving the Jets, One First at a Time

Much of Queen Elizabeth's early career was devoted to methodically proving that Britain's new F-35B Lightning stealth jets could actually operate from her deck. The first F-35B take-off from her distinctive ski-jump ramp came on 25 September 2018 off the coast of New Jersey, followed by the first shipborne rolling vertical landing that October, a landing technique that lets the short take-off jet come down with more fuel and weapons aboard than a standard vertical landing allows. The first landing by a British-flown F-35B followed in October 2019, and by December that year she had hosted the first British F-35B launch conducted in UK waters, milestones that collectively proved Britain's new carrier strike capability actually worked, rather than simply existing on paper.

Flagship, and a Deployment That Circled the Globe

Queen Elizabeth declared Initial Operating Capability on 4 January 2021 and formally took on the role of Fleet Flagship later that month. Her defining moment came just months later, when she departed home waters in May 2021 leading Carrier Strike Group 21, an eight-month deployment that took her through NATO exercises in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean, the Suez Canal on 7 July, joint exercises with the Indian Navy, freedom of navigation operations in the contested South China Sea, and exercises with Japan's Maritime Self-Defense Force. Along the way, on 18 June 2021, her embarked F-35Bs began combat operations against Islamic State targets under Operation Inherent Resolve, giving the deployment a genuine combat dimension alongside its diplomatic and training value. It was, by any measure, one of the most ambitious deployments any Royal Navy ship has undertaken in decades.

Setbacks Along the Way

No deployment of that scale comes without difficulty. A COVID-19 outbreak aboard in July 2021 required vaccination and mitigation measures mid-voyage, and that November an F-35B from 617 Squadron crashed into the Mediterranean during operations, though the pilot ejected safely. Earlier technical issues, including propeller shaft debris found during sea trials and a subsequently identified propeller shaft leak, had already given the carrier programme some difficult headlines before she ever deployed operationally, echoing the kind of teething troubles any first-of-class warship of this scale tends to encounter.

A Sobering Loss

Not every setback has been mechanical. On 4 September 2024, a Merlin Mk.4 helicopter ditched into the English Channel during a night exercise associated with the carrier group, an accident that cost one crew member their life and left two others hospitalised. It stands as a sober reminder that even routine training around a carrier group carries real risk for the people who fly and serve aboard it.

Still Leading From the Front

HMS Queen Elizabeth remains in active service today, homeported at Portsmouth and continuing to serve as the Royal Navy's Fleet Flagship, including a 2023 deployment to northern European waters under Operation Firedrake with F-35Bs from 617 Squadron. From proving carrier aviation off the American coast to leading a genuinely global deployment that touched the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific, she has spent her career living up to the scale of ambition her construction represented.